


Story in my Mind

by Arsenic, arsenicarcher (Arsenic)



Series: 14 Valentines [31]
Category: The Magnificent Seven (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-04
Updated: 2012-02-04
Packaged: 2020-12-01 23:42:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20937401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arsenic/pseuds/Arsenic, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arsenic/pseuds/arsenicarcher
Summary: Nora isn't quite sure how all the other girls handle things.





	Story in my Mind

San Francisco wasn’t as pretty as the one picture Nora had ever seen of it, but it was damn sight prettier than Wickes’ Town, or the prairie shacks she’d grown up amongst. Add to that the fact that it was brand new and she was with women she respected and trusted, and it was nearly gorgeous, if only inside her head.

Mrs. Travis had tucked a velvet purse into Nora’s hands, planting a kiss on her temple and wishing her the best of luck as they’d left Four Corners. Nora hadn’t had the nerve to look inside until they were on the road, when she saw the tidy sum rolled up inside, as much, she supposed, as the woman could afford to give. Between it, the money Lydia had taken from Wickes’ camp before shooting him, and the bits and pieces each of them had managed to hoard over the years, there was just enough to buy a dilapidated house, set up shop.

The first weeks were the worst, when they hadn’t the money yet to fix the problems with the house, and the men who came around only had so much to spend. Often it made them overly proud or just simply angry at the world, enough to make them dangerous.

Lydia was careful to save the other type for her, the eager kids who were there on bets or because they needed practice for a girl who seemed real to them. Nora kept trying to find the nerve to tell Lydia she could take the others, could share the load, but she never seemed to get the sounds past her throat, where they stuck at the remembered feeling of bruises on her larynx so severe it hadn’t been evident she would ever speak again.

Lydia shook her head like she knew what Nora would have said if she could have. She said, “Most of the others don’t even like handlin’ the children.”

That wasn’t a complete lie, but it wasn’t the whole truth, either. Nora appreciated the way Lydia could walk the line in between.

*

Emily wasn’t that much older than Nora, but she’d left her home considerably earlier, had gained her edges much younger. As the two youngest, they generally shared a room when not with customers. Emily had never once complained about Nora’s nightmares, to the point where Nora figured Emily just slept through them.

One night, though, Nora awoke from one not to the sound of her own harsh breaths or the sudden shock of having rolled to the floor, but to the press of Emily’s hand against her heart, and a quiet, “Shh, darlin’.”

Nora blinked her eyes open and tried to acclimate. “Em?”

“Budge over,” Emily said, and Nora rolled onto her side without even thinking about it. She’d done this with her younger sister a million times. She’d never had anyone to do it for her.

Emily wrapped Nora in her arms, warm from sleep, her heartbeat steady. Nora shifted so she could ask, “How come all of you took it so much better?”

Emily took an unusually long time before speaking up. “The pain? Or the…the way it makes you feel inside?”

“Both. All of you’s had it as rough as me and I don’t see none of you hidin’ so much as I do.”

“We just hide differently, I think,” Emily told her. “I go away. When they hurt me or do somethin’ that scares me or makes me feel like I’m not even there, I just think about the home I’m gonna build myself when I decide to have me a family. Not a big one, nothin’ like my ma. Maybe a couple of kids, I think. Maybe a husband, if I find someone like JD, but older, able to see somethin’ beyond my work.”

Nora wondered whether she could do that. “I’ve never much thought about what I wanted.”

Nora felt the mischief about to come out of Emily before she heard it. “Not even when that fine lookin’ doctor was takin’ care of you all nice and sweet?”

Nora laughed. “Wasn’t wantin’ him anywhere near me at first. But maybe a little, when he brought me soup that first night and stayed, tellin’ me stories and listenin’ to me.”

It had been the first time Nora could remember a man—any man—bothering to quiet down while she spoke.

“Maybe that’s what you want,” Emily said quietly. “Maybe you just want t’ be heard and understood.”

Nora rolled the words around in her head. They sounded comfortable. “Em?”

“Mm?”

“Could you stay? Just for tonight?”

“Already asleep,” Emily said. Nora smiled in the dark.


End file.
